days 7-??

well, it's been a little while since we've posted. this is partly due to the phenomena of both of our vancouver hotels charging a fee for wifi (LAME), and partly because we've been busy with lots of fun things as well as distracted by the idea of being engaged. awesome.

so here is my attempt at a condensed version of the past few days:

we had a lovely celebratory dinner at il terrazo in victoria. what a magical day.

we left victoria the following morning (thursday?) and headed out for the ferry to vancouver, stopping along the way at a very nice park called Goldstream provincial park, took a little hike to a beautiful waterfall, it was fantastic. the ferry ride was fine, we read some more harry potter to pass the time. upon arriving in vancouver we were immediately met with a traffic jam, but after getting through that we got to our first vancouver hotel which was very nice, and then had dinner at Bistro 101, which is connected to the culinary school here, the food was very good, complete with nervous student waiters, etc.

the following day we went to lynn canyon park, which has a very cool suspension bridge and amazing canyons and waterfalls and pools, all free. it's just a city park. unbelievable. then we took the gondola up grouse mountain, which is extremely beautiful even though as we were going up it was starting to rain. the rain delayed us a bit, but cleared up in time for us to catch a bird show, a logging show, and ride a chair lift up to the very tip-top of the mountain, which was just breathtaking and a little bit frightening.

this morning we checked out of our first hotel, and rented bikes to ride around stanley park. it was really neat. the park is huge, and there is a bike path that goes all the way around the perimeter of it, along the sea wall. so cool. by noonish we were pretty exhausted, having ridden bikes for 3 hours or so. so we stopped and had fish and chips at a restaurant in the park.

(side note: i feel like we've gotten amazing food up here in canada, they really know how to do it right. but somehow service is...lacking. maybe it's the slower pace? maybe the culture just doesn't value prompt service at restaurants? either way, it's an odd trend)

then we checked into our SUPER-SWANKY final hotel, the Sutton Place. i got this crazy deal on hotwire and booked it for cheap. awesome. so far, they've brought us a fancy dessert to celebrate our "anniversary" because i had told them we were celebrating a special occasion in order to get a king bed in the room. also i'm pretty sure i saw wil wheaton in the lobby. very cool.

only one more full day, and then we'll be heading home. it's been so incredible. obviously for certain reasons, but really for so many others as well. good times.

p.s. i've been mostly successful at not delving into wedding-planning thoughts, though i did watch a few episodes of 'say yes to the dress' after jeff went to bed last night. also my ring freaking rocks.